Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id OAA17789 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 31 Aug 2001 14:59:04 +0100 Message-ID: <3B8F97B0.200DE71F@bioinf.man.ac.uk> Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 14:57:04 +0100 From: Chris Taylor <Christopher.Taylor@man.ac.uk> Organization: University of Manchester X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Some Light relief References: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D310174606A@inchna.stir.ac.uk> <3B8F7B35.FED3E1EF@bioinf.man.ac.uk> <999262280.3b8f884811259@rugth1.phys.rug.nl> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> So, my education included a religious studies teacher who didn't believe in
> religion, and a biology teacher who didn't believe in evolution.
Lol :)
I was also in the first year of GCSE - I got some of the last 'O' levels
going the previous autumn too - what puzzles me is that I only did half
my French GCSE paper and got an A (hey look how well the kids do on
these new exams - marvellous). What I don't get is how abilities can
improve - I always thought that the national exam results were fitted to
a curve that assumed the same profile of grades every year, but
apparently that was wildly inaccurate. Apparently, pedagogical science
is making vast strides...
Back to the Asimov-inspired larks:
Sorry, I've not gone bonkers (honest).
My point was that if you're going to engineer some stability into a
fairly anarchic version of humanity, you give them a codified set of
behaviours that will allow reciprocal altruism (love your neighbour,
don't kill people or nick stuff), protected by stranger exclusion (only
trust subscribers of the religion), and importantly you give them some
simple public hygiene tips (wash to avoid diseases like dysentery,
cholera and typhoid) which are engineered into the memeplex as religious
rites to keep them healthy and spreading the word; cleanliness is next
to godliness, but why - the fairy tales you mention Phillip - good
stories to engage simple folk, avoiding having to give courses in
epidemiology.
These days, the washing stuff is a stylised echo of the past, but why
was it there at all? With or without my joke aliens seeding these ideas,
how does washing get in there so regularly? The easy answer is that all
these religions have a common root, which for arbitrary reasons
contained a washing ritual, but again, why (considering that it took
pasteur+ to work it out for us).
And of course your new clan of converts will survive clashes with other
groups much better if they have a super weapon like the ark of the
covenant...
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Chris Taylor (chris@bioinf.man.ac.uk)
http://bioinf.man.ac.uk/ »people»chris
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